"Bein't you Captain Joe Walker?"

It was the dirt-poor young listener of whispers, at the next table, about thirty, ragged, redheaded, freckled.

“Yes, I am.”

"Sir, I been looking for you," Poor Man said, rising clumsily. He kicked his chair and it fell over. "I been looking all over Denver. I'm George Lount, from Canada and Oregon. Could I please talk to you?"

Without waiting on yea or nay he pulled a chair and sat across the table, his mud brown eyes staring at a man like he was seeing a prize horse, a hank of dirty red hair hung down in his right eye.

"You wanted to talk to me."

"Sorry, sir," Lount said. "I'm just so pleased to finally find you. Captain Joseph Rutherford Walker, in the flesh. I be dog." He shook his head and grinned.

Oh damnation, another glory hound.

"They say you fought with Andy Jackson in the Creek and Seminole Wars. They say you're the man named Independence, Missouri. Town you founded."

Joe nodded.

"Captain Walker was the first white man to cross the Sierras into California. November 1833. The expedition was forced to eat the horses to stay alive. Discoverer of Yosemite, Walker Lake, Walker River, and Walker Pass. Is that all true?"

Joe looked at his coffee cup, then at Lount's intent face. Lount was licking his chapped lower lip.

"We didn't discover anything.”

Lount’s tongue stopped.

“We were the first whites to cross into California across the Sierras, but Indians been doing it for generations. We were the first whites to see Yosemite, far as I can tell, because Chief Tenaya told me so a few years ago. He and his people were living up there when we passed through. If they hadn't been, we'd never have found their trails and we'd've died in the snow in Yosemite.

  "Peter Skene Ogden saw the lake and the river three years before I did, but he didn't get credit for it because of being a Brit. The Tubatulabel Indians showed us the pass. They been calling it `The Big Road' since time out of mind.

"When we got to California we found Ogden and his Brits had been coming in for years, and trapped it clean, and there weren't enough beaver from the Sacramento River to the Kern to make a mule know it was carrying a load."

He sipped his coffee in the silence while Lount took that in. Fool boy. Listening to tall tales. What does he want?

"Are you a journalist?"

"Me?" The redhead spread his arms and opened his hands, all innocence. "Why, I can hardly cipher a letter to my mother. No sir, I'm no story-teller. I'm a merchant seaman. Or I was until I jumped ship in '49. Gold rush. Didn't pan out. Since then, my brother and I have been prospecting around?"

Joe nodded.

"We were in Oregon, five years ago, prospecting, and we ran into an old hand of yours, Jack Ralston, and he said "

"Jack Ralston. How is he?"

"He's dead.”

Another man of my time done gone.

"I'm sorry to know it. Jack was with me on my first expedition into California, in 1833. What happened to him?"

Lount licked his lip. His right knee bumped the table and Joe's coffee slopped into the saucer.

"He just got old, and his heart gave out, I guess. I met him at a gold camp on the Rogue River in '57. We were both placering a little. We were sitting around one night, and Jack he said that him and you was down in Arizona back in '37, on the Little Colorado, and that you found gold nuggets the size of pocket watches just lying around, and a ledge of it above the river."

"He said at the time, neither you nor he was lookin' for gold, nor knew gold, nor wanted gold. And so you all just took a few hunks for pocket pieces and left the rest. Said when he first saw gold in Oregon, he recognized what those pocket pieces must have been. So we decided to go have a look-see? Jack, he was going to guide Jim and me -- that's my brother, Jim -- he was going to guide us back to the place, and we all went in on it together, but instead, he died."

"Jack?"

"Well, they both died, Jim and Jack. Jack died first."

His foot drummed on the floor, rattling plates on the table.

"Set still," Joe commanded.

"Yessir," Lount said, and froze.

"And that was when?" Joe asked.

"Sir?"

"When did Jack Ralston die?"

"Four years ago, sir," George said. "No, five. Five years ago. '57. Then Jim and me, we went down there ourselves in '58, but we didn't have no luck. We took three other fellers and left out of Los Angeleez, but we got stuck in the Mojave Desert. We couldn't find no water, and then the Indians got Jim. So I come back."

He looked down at the table and blushed.

"I see," Joe said.

"Since then, I've been jobbing around to get another stake together. Carpentering? And now I've got it. Captain Walker, sir, I've come to ask you if I could hire you as guide to the Little Colorado River gold country that Jack Ralston told me about."

  Hell, yes. Down, blind man. Be easy now. You're like the old hound rising off the rug when he hears the horn. Learn to whimper once and go back to sleep by the fire.

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Lount," he said. "I can't do it. I recommend you find somebody else."

"Why not?" George said.

"Because I'm going b --"

Down, dog. Hush.

"Mr. Lount, I am going back to California, not south. I am about business of my own.”

There’s virgin territory in central Arizona no white man’s ever seen. Yes, and no blind man will see.

“I was just in Arizona last year, with a party of gold hunters, and we were outnumbered by Apaches. We were obliged to do more Indian fighting than prospecting. With the territory under martial law now, I expect General Carleton will place any civilian explorations under his authority. This isn't a good time to go."

"Do you know him?" George said. "General Carleton? I mean, he'd trust you, wouldn't he? To lead a prospecting expedition?"

Now George here, he’s a case of an old maid who surely wants to dance, so she flirts with the one-legged man. But Carleton, he’s greedy, he’d let me go through thinking he’d get a share of the gold.

  "I know him. He'd trust me. But I am going to California, not back south. If you insist on pursuing this venture now, I recommend you ask Dick Wooten. He's around town. He knows that part of the country almost as well as I do, and he's as good a guide as I'd be. Probably better."

"Does he know where the gold is?" George persisted.

Damn this fool pestering a man a kid kicking his horse in the ribs.

"There isn't any gold on the perches of the Little Colorado.”

That stopped his giddyup he’s hushed now.

“Ralston was a big fool talker, and he got to believing his own lies. I took an Army party in there myself, in '58, and if there'd been any gold, they'd've found it. Even the Army could've stumbled on gold nuggets as big as pocket watches. There's gold in Arizona, but not on the Little Colorado."

George leaned over the table and stared urgently at him.

"Captain Walker, I've got a thousand dollars for this expedition. I was going to buy four mules and my equipment with half of it and offer you the other half, five hundred dollars, plus whatever gold you found and a tenth of my share. But I'll offer you the whole thousand, if you'll do it. I know a man who can turn down four thousand dollars from Captain Fremont can pick and choose what he wants to do, but if you'd just think about it --"

Fool. Is he too stupid to believe it? Or does the big empty country call him like a woman? Probably some of both. I should tell him no. It’d be a sin to lead him, blind leading the blind. Old dog, want to go a-hunting one more time.

"Mr. Lount, I don't care much about gold. I've guided men to gold fields I've discovered and walked away from all my life. I've sold cattle and horses to miners and got rich doing it while the miners died young for a pittance. If I take you up on your offer, I'll have my own reasons. But I want you to know what's in store."

"Yes, sir."

I can see his spirit dancing now, he thinks he’s hooked a big fish. Can’t nothing calm the boy except a house falls on him. Well, tell him anyway.

"The country is dangerous. Your brother got killed.”

“Yes sir.”

He did sober some. Let’s see if I can dissuade him from fetching feckless ruin on himself.

“ There will be Indian trouble. Even if we find the gold you're looking for, getting it out will be a different matter. The odds are that you'll not get rich.

"Now you're a good carpenter, I judge. You earned a thousand dollars doing useful work. People wouldn't have hired that much work if you weren't good at it. You're not trying to feed a family on rented or mortgaged land, where the landlord or the bank charges you more every time you prove up on the property. You're not stuck feeding eleven-cent corn to three-cent hogs and watching your people starve. You're not burnt out, running from nightriders or Jayhawkers, looking for free land where you can build a new home for your family.

"Now are you certain you want to risk your life when you don't have to, and when I tell you that if you're lucky, you won't get rich, you will get worn out, and scared, you'll get hurt in ways that will make it harder for you to work and you'll wind up back here in Denver in a couple of years trying to start over as a carpenter, with no money, no tools, and no one who remembers you. Are you certain, Mr. Lount?"

"Yes, sir, I am," George said. "My brother died. I'm going."

Jesus on a jackrabbit, what can be done with such a man? George, you're a town man, the land will kill you if the Indians don't. I won't help. Hell, I ain't his father. I’d ruther look at new Arizona dirt I never did see before, maybe die trying, and I don’t much care, than go blind feeling sorry for myself like a child or a tired old dog. Then let us strike flat the sharp points of Apacheria.

"Very well, then.”

"Ah, Captain Walker, sir, that's just, ah, Hell! I be dog! Let me buy you a drink."

"No thank you, Mr. Lount.  Meet me here for breakfast.  We'll talk then. Good night to you, sir."

Now you shake George’s hand, he told himself, he’s blinded by bad judgment and inexperience and you’re blinded by life. But you know better so you are the worse fool.

Half a mile away was a Mexican boy tending a small herd of sheep. He could see the white and black shapes now, no fuzzier than they ought to be. Warm sunlight began to burn the frost off the grass and the brush, making dew diamonds sparkle on the leaf tips.

"Don't that sun feel good?" he said.

"Tolerable," Jake said, "except last night I was knocked in the head with a chimney, and now I'm most ruined for a sun-worshiper, being buried under a pile of brick."

"Aguardiente," Joe said, "And yelling `Hoka hey' all night will do that to a man."

The sheep stopped grazing. The fat white bellwether and the lead goat threw their heads up and stood with their ears and necks stiff.

Joe put his coffee cup down and squinted into the east, past the sheep, into the dun and scrabble hills. The ground under his feet began to tingle. The whole flock tensed, heads up, fat white rumps bunched beneath them. The bellwether bolted and the ewes right behind her ran, and the ones behind them scattered.

Some were trampled, and others climbed on the backs of the ones in front of them and went down, while the little herd boy ran around with his stick, trying to gather them into a bunch. The ground drummed and out of the mountains, riding their mounts at dead run, came Apaches.

Joe grabbed the Sharps and jumped behind his log. He winced and opened his eyes and lay the gun barrel across the log. The Apache horses and riders were blurry shapes.

He squinted down the rifle's front sight and willed his eyes to focus. He only saw the gauntness in the shapes of the horses, and the shadows that meant ribs sticking out on the men.

His stomach rolled from the eyestrain, and he heard a groan come out of himself.

"What?" Jake said. He was lying next to Joe with his old buffalo gun over the log.

"Nothing," Joe said.

"Look how they're dressed," Jake said. "See that one in a turban like a mammy washerwoman?"

The brave was nothing but a brown blur. He squinted hard and it hurt but then his eyes cleared and he told Jake "Yeah, got him in my sights. That other in a white shirt on a skinny paint."

"Right, got him. What are the men doing?"

Jake turned his head and looked.

"They just sitting stock still. Too froze up to take cover."

"Get down, you men!" Joe yelled.

Dan moved then. He'd been sitting with his mouth open, his journal on his leg. Joe's voice unfroze him, and he fell on his belly in the grass, and felt the ground go through him clear to his backbone, but he couldn't take his eyes off the Indians.

Bright red hands on the horses' hides, white lightning stripes outlined in black and yellow, bare chests, heads, and haunches all went by running. An ocher-colored man on a dun horse tore by the sheep on one side and Dan thought he wore a pair of white lady's bloomers for sleeves. A brown and white pinto ran around the flock under a dark man whose girl-long black braids flew straight out behind him. He wore a purple velvet vest like a man imitating Sinbad on a stage.

Amid terrified sheep a naked Apache in a red turban dashed his brown nag at the front of the flock, spearing the lead goat and splitting the sheep into two bleating streams. Dan saw his face was intent with concentration and joy, and dear God he was laughing.

"Less than half a mile," Jake said, but Dan didn't know what to do with the statement. What of it? he thought. These are the Apaches, people who have no doubt. Here are some men of one will, who will succeed. Their gleeful laughter stunned him.

"Seven hundred yards now," Jake said.

"Move!"

It was Captain Walker, and Dan jumped for cover behind a rock, while his mind catalogued a similarity in the Apaches' appearance to old Viking raiders, old Scot clansmen, old Irish warriors, while another part of his mind screamed in terror.

"Think they'll take a run at us?" Joe said. He wished he could put his field glasses on the Sharps' sight. The blur of Apaches swarming the sheep made his gorge rise.

"Nope," Jake said. "Outnumbered. Outgunned. Out in the open."

"They seen anyone around here more organized than the Army?"

"They might chance it," Jake conceded.

"You men lay low and don't fire unless I do!" Joe yelled.

Jake looked over at Dan Conner, the closest of the greenhorns, on his belly behind a log with his hands folded like a maiden.

"Don't worry, Joe," Jake said. "They're too busy praying and puking to fight."

Dan heard Jake, and sighted on his rifle, but the noise confused him. He heard hooves thudding on dirt, sheep bleating, running, and a terrible chattering as though the Apaches were human bats. That was their laughter.

Horses ran in and out of dust clouds, riders moved past his line of vision and each was up to something evil but he couldn't see which was the worst, the one to fix on as the source of all malice. Two Indians surrounded the rear of the herd, and one warrior swooped down from his mount, grabbed the Mexican herd boy, and lifted him onto his horse before the child even knew he was a target.

Above the sweet green grass and bolting white sheep, Dan saw frightened brown boy limbs sticking out like tree twigs from his little sack body. There were running horses, a bright red shirt, a turquoise blanket, riders hazing the sheep, a brickcolored chest, Apaches chasing the flock toward the canyon, buckskin pantaloons, the rump of a brown and white pinto with a chewed tail disappearing behind the conspiring mountain and they were gone.

The ground no longer drummed.

He did not know time anymore, minutes and hours had been knocked away as useless measurements, but looking at the sky he found the fluffy white cloud had not moved and so five minutes had not passed. A bird chirped tentatively.

"Cure your headache?" Jake asked Joe.

"Spilt the damned coffee."